Joystiq impressions: Spore (PC/Mac)

February 12th, 2008 | Category: Games

Filed under: Culture, Mac, PC, Online, Simulations, Strategy, Casual, Galleries

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/pc_games/Hands_on_impressions_with_Spore’; At a recent Spore demo, I spent four hours seeing and playing the game. I can normally sum up an in-development game in a half-hour, but I frantically took notes that whole instance. I gorged on Spore, like a starving hiker stumbling into an alpine restaurant. So that was what all the excitement was about.

Even after watching and playing Spore to the point of delirium, I still had more questions. There was even more I didn’t see. But I was so full that I figured whether I never heard anything about Spore again, I’d be satisfied.

Somehow, in the following days, I started to miss Spore a little: the teetering

walks of an off-balance creature, an alien spaceship scaring my nervous tribe, and the curved horizon lines. I could fill pages here with these little snippets — and I did in my notebook.

But most of all, I came away thinking that Maxis could pull off Spore’s overwhelming scope. that game could actually live up to Will Wright’s intent, shipping on September 7. Through Spore, he could change gaming again.

I never wanted to read another hype-generating Spore preview again. I never thought I’d be writing one.

Gallery: Spore: new pics (12 Feb 2008)